


Living With the Consequences

by avislightwing



Series: Snapshots of Static [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Discussion of Death, Dramatic Irony, Friendship, Gen, Lucretia is Sad, Post-Episode: e041-049 The Eleventh Hour Parts 1-9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: And there's something about the dying that feels familiar...Wouldn't it feel most familiar to the one who's experienced it the most?





	Living With the Consequences

Merle couldn’t sleep.

This wasn’t exactly an ordinary occurrence. Normally, he slept like a rock, and it was Taako or Magnus who were up at all hours. He’d found Taako in the kitchen at three in the morning once, cursing and throwing things against the wall. There were half-finished macarons lying all over the counters and the floor. Just as Merle walked in, Taako collapsed back against the wall and began sobbing, hands over his face. Quickly, guiltily, Merle had turned and left again.

He didn’t know if Taako and Magnus were awake now. He himself was sitting out on the quad, gazing at the stars.

It wasn’t what the cup had shown him that was keeping him awake. So what, you lose an arm here or there, it wasn’t worth regretting. Nah. What was on his mind was… what wasn’t. The void of static when the cup was rewinding through his life. The way he could feel that same almost-painful sensation, like a limb was asleep, when he looked up at the stars.

Most of all, Merle was thinking about death.

Fifty-seven. That’s what that Kravitz guy had said. Plus eleven, now. Merle chuckled to himself – next one would be sixty-nine. The sex number. Perfect.

It had felt so familiar.

The burning, the sudden absence, the returning of feeling. There’d been something in him that had recognized it – that had shrugged off being _destroyed_ over and over again like it was just another day the office. And whenever he tried to parse that feeling, his head filled with static again.

What if Kravitz was right? What if he really had died fifty-seven (now sixty-eight) times?

“Merle?”

Merle looked over to see the Director, her hair a cloud of white framing her weary face. She was wearing a rather threadbare blue bathrobe. “What are you doing out here so late?”

“Aw, just thinkin’,” Merle said airily. “Pull up a bit of grass, Lucy. Stars’re nice tonight.”

The Director pulled the robe closer around her. “Please don’t call me that, Merle. You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Sure, sure. Dav around as well? Bet he’d like to see the stars.” Merle had noticed how the gnome tipped his head back and gazed at the sky whenever he was outside.

She flinched, just enough to be noticeable. “No, Davenport is asleep at the moment.”

“Not you though, huh?”

“No.”

She was looking at him weird. Like she expected something to happen. “Somethin’ on your mind, Lucy?”

“Just… worried. Stressed. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Merle grinned. “Could use another spa trip, huh?”

That drew a smile out of her. “Not that I didn’t appreciate our time together, Merle, but taking that kind of time off isn’t really in the books for me.” Her hands tightened on her oak staff (did she ever let go of that thing?), and she looked up at the stars, eyes roaming and sharp. Then she shook her head and her gaze dropped again. “Time is a strange thing, Merle, and none of us ever know how much of it we have left.”

“Come on, we’re not _that_ old,” Merle goofed.

The Director laughed, her eyes crinkling into surprised amusement. “I… suppose not. I guess your experience in Refuge has just been on my mind. Given me a bit to think about. Mortality is a funny thing, Merle.”

“I guess,” Merle said. “Never given it much thought. You’re born, you live, you die. It’s the part in the middle that matters, not the part at the end.”

“You _would_ think that, wouldn’t you?” the Director said softly.

“Huh?”

The Director shook her head. “I should head back. Enjoy your stargazing, Merle.”

“Sure. Hey – ya ever need to talk about that mortality thing, you know where to find me,” Merle said. “Kind of an expert on dyin’ now, you know?”

The Director made a small, choked sound. “Thank you, Merle. You’re – I appreciate it.”

“Any time, Lucy.”

Once the Director had disappeared back into one of the domes, Merle got to his feet with a soft grunt. Damn joints. Good thing about his soulwood arm was it didn’t get all stiff from sitting in cold grass like the rest of him did.

Not a big one for regrets, that’s what he’d told the cup. Well, maybe he didn’t have regrets about his arm, but he did have one about something else. And maybe there was something to what the Director said.

Maybe, in the morning, he’d call Hekuba. He couldn’t do anything about the static in his noggin, but maybe he could make sure that those kids of his had a semi-good dad experience before that sixty-ninth death.

_Mortality is a funny thing, Merle._

Yeah. Maybe it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos fuel me. You can find me on tumblr [@birdiethebibliophile](birdiethebibliophile.tumblr.com)!


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